Bob Lang's The Complete Kitchen Cabinetmaker, Revised Edition (eBook)

Shop Drawings and Professional Methods for Designing and Constructing Every Kind of Kitchen and Built-In Cabinet

Robert W. Lang (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2021 | 2. Auflage
232 Seiten
Fox Chapel Publishing (Verlag)
978-1-60765-159-8 (ISBN)

Infos

Demonstrating how woodworkers can approach the complex job of designing and making built-in cabinets for kitchens, family rooms, and home offices, this technical handbook provides meticulously detailed shop drawings, instructions, and hundreds of professional tips for saving time, materials, unnecessary aggravation, and money. Bob Lang offers practical, hands-on guidance for building traditional face-frame cabinets as well as constructing contemporary frameless Euro-style cabinets. Woodworkers will learn how to measure rooms and design fitting cabinetry that considers both function and aesthetics, how to develop working shop drawings and cutting lists, and how to work with materials as varied as solid wood and plastic laminate. Technical instructions for cutting and joining the basic box, as well as for fitting it to drawer stacks, sinks, corners, appliances, and islands, are also included, as are detailed steps for sanding, finishing, and installing each piece. This revised edition also offers a colorful new 16-page idea gallery with photographs of finished cabinets.

Robert W. Lang was executive editor of Popular Woodworking magazine for 10 years, a contributor to Fine Woodworking, and author of several woodworking books. He studied industrial design at The Ohio State University, and his experience includes building custom furniture and cabinets as well as managing and engineering large architectural millwork projects. He currently edits American Period Furniture, the annual journal of the Society of American Period Furniture Makers, and Pins & Tails, the SAPFM quarterly.

Textauszug

1. TWO KINDS OF CABINET

European Frameless vs. Face-Frame Cabinets

One of the biggest decisions the cabinetmaker will face is whether to build traditional face-frame cabinets, or European frameless cabinets, also known as 32mm cabinets. This choice will affect nearly every aspect of the project, and also introduces a third option, building hybrid cabinets using the best aspects of each method (Figure 1 & 2).

Both choices use boxes that are mainly constructed of plywood. The differences lie in how the finished face of the cabinet is constructed, how the parts are prepared for assembly, and the type of hardware used to swing the doors and move the drawers in and out of the cabinet.

When European cabinets were introduced to the United States about 30 years ago, nearly every element was different than what was commonly used. Today, the great American melting pot has worked on cabinet design, and it is rare to see a cabinet made in one style that doesn’t contain at least one element of the other.

Figure 1. Basic definitions: A European 32mm, or frameless, cabinet with overlay doors and drawer, top, and a traditional face frame cabinet with inset doors and drawers, bottom.

Differences in Construction, not Appearance

People think that appearance is the biggest difference between the two styles, mainly because we think of the visible parts of face-frame cabinets as being constructed of wood, and European cabinets as being of plastic laminate. Visualize the door of a face-frame cabinet, and an oak raised panel, stile-and-rail door likely comes to mind. Think about European cabinets and the image will likely be that of a hospital laboratory: a row of uniform white plastic doors with brushed-chrome wire pulls.

The truth is, you can build in either style and achieve the finished look that you want. You can also mix the elements to achieve the look that satisfies your eye, the construction method that suits your building style and the tools you have available, and your budget. Big decisions should be informed decisions, and you should have a thorough understanding of both styles before you can intelligently choose which one, or which parts of each one, are right for you.

32mm Center to Center

When the 32mm system was developed, Europe was still being rebuilt after World War II, and German design was heavily influenced by the Bauhaus dictum “form follows function.” The cabinetmaking system that was developed provided a method to efficiently produce an inexpensive, standardized, yet flexible product.

The notable feature of the system was line-bored rows of precisely spaced and located holes that could be used for many purposes: locating hinges, drawer slides, and other hardware, as well as dowels to hold the cabinets together. The “32mm” name came from the spacing of the holes, and that was a function of the machines developed for drilling them. 32mm wasn’t chosen because it met perfectly a predetermined set of design goals, it was simply as close as the German engineers of that time could place two drilling heads next to each other.

Figure 2. Cutaway views of European 32mm cabinet, top, and traditional face-frame cabinet, bottom.

Overlay and Inset

The other, major feature of 32mm Eurostyle cabinets was the absence of a solid wood frame — the face frame — around the front of the cabinet. These cabinets are known as frameless because the front edge of the plywood box is covered with a finished band and is exposed to view. In traditional 32mm cabinetry, the doors and drawer fronts overlay nearly the entire face of the cabinet. Except for the gaps between them, the doors and drawers are the only visible parts of the cabinets when viewed from the front.

Figure 3. Typical hole layout for frameless cabinets. The 5mm system holes locate hardware such as drawer slides and hinges, the 8mm assembly holes are for the dowels that hold the case together. Boring all the system holes allows the standard cabinet end panel to be used in any number of configurations.

This clean, modern look has great appeal to many, but others find it too stark and sterile. Functionally, it increases access to the inside of the case, and makes it easier to get things in and out of the cabinets. Structurally, the front of the cabinet isn’t as strong as a face-frame cabinet, but unless the cabinetmaker has gone too far in using cheap material, or has pressed the limits of width to their maximum, frameless cabinets are stronger than they need to be.

The doors and drawer fronts don’t have to be overlaying the front of the cabinet, they can be inset, that is, they can fit within their openings. This brings the edges of the cabinet into the picture as a design element, and changes the appearance significantly.

With either method, all of the doors and drawer fronts, as well as all of the other parts, need to be made as precisely as possible. With overlay doors, the gaps between the doors and drawer fronts are crucial to the appearance of the finished product. They need to be a uniform size, and they need to form uniform lines and square corners. The hinges and drawer faces are adjustable for position, but the hinge adjustment can’t make an obtuse corner square, or a short door taller.

Standard practice is to set these gaps at ⅛ inch (about 3mm) or less between doors in overlay cabinets, or between the door and the cabinet in inset doors. People will say that overlay cabinets are easier to make than inset, because the doors don’t have to fit inside the openings. The truth is, either way you do it, you have to get the cabinet openings and doors square and the right size, or they won’t work or look right.

Don’t make the half-overlay mistake — Europeans will make fun of you if you do. In face-frame cabinets there are times when the edges of the doors overlay their openings by ⅜ inch or ½ inch. Misguided souls, trying to adopt the frameless 32mm system, often try to impose this form, usually as a method for building cabinets without working carefully. The existence of half-overlay hinges is taken as confirmation that this is an acceptable method. In fact, half-overlay hinges are for the purpose of hanging two doors from one vertical cabinet component.

If you try to build a frameless project with half-overlay hinges everywhere, you will be introducing all kinds of complications and variations to a relatively simple and elegant system, and the finished product won’t look right, because you won’t be able to achieve uniform gaps between the doors and drawers.

32mm in a Nutshell

As the 32mm system matured, several parameters were developed:

• System holes are a vertical line of 5mm diameter holes, 32mm from center to center, bored on the inside of the cabinet side. The line is 37mm back from the front edge of the cabinet, and a second line of holes is close to the back of the cabinet. The distance between the two rows is ideally some multiple of 32mm.

• Assembly holes are at 90 degrees to the system holes, near the top and bottom of the cabinet sides, and at other locations where a fixed shelf or divider may occur. These holes are 8mm in diameter, and are spaced in multiples of 32mm. There are fewer assembly holes, and they are used for dowels that hold the cabinet components together.

• Different types of cabinets can be made from components with the same boring patterns. Drawer slides and door hinges are engineered to go in the same holes, simplifying the production process.

• Cabinet components are standardized as much as possible, and most of the work is completed before the cabinets are assembled. Raw edges of plywood are covered, hardware is attached, and the components, if wood, are finished before they are assembled.

OVERLAY:

the doors and drawer fronts cover and overlap their openings.

INSET:

the doors and drawer fronts fit inside their openings.

Because of this standardization, parts need to be made with precision. Many new machines, and refinements of old ones, were developed to handle these processes quickly and accurately. However, these expensive machines are not necessary to produce quality work. A careful worker can produce high-quality work efficiently with minimal investment in tools.

The drawing on the facing page (Figure 3) illustrates a typical side-section from a European-style 32mm base cabinet. Note how the vertical system holes are utilized in three different ways: the hinges plug into holes in the front row, the shelf is supported by pins in both rows, and the drawer slide is screwed into holes in the front and back rows. The bottom of the cabinet is attached to the sides with six dowels, and the front and back top rails, as well as the rail below the drawer, are attached to the cabinet side with dowels.

RAILS:

Frame, door and cabinet parts that go side to side.

STILES:

Frame and door parts that go up and down.

Designed-in Flexibility and Efficiency

This cabinet could also have doors that extend to the top of the cabinet, eliminating the drawer using the same group of holes. Or, the doors could be eliminated and...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 27.7.2021
• Verlagsort: Mount Joy
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Freizeit / Hobby ► Hausbau / Einrichten / Renovieren
• ISBN-10: 1-60765-159-9 / 1607651599
• ISBN-13: 978-1-60765-159-8 / 9781607651598